What does it look like to improve math skills while positively impacting math identity? Colorado Math Corps has a few ideas.

By Josh Miller, CYC Math Corps Coaching Specialist

If you asked a student today what their least favorite subject is, would you be surprised to hear them say math? I often hear students say they just aren’t “math people,” or that math is too difficult. These feelings about math are nothing new. Time Magazine spoke to a research team back in 1956 about their survey of high school students on opinions about learning math: 

“[Students] just don’t like the stuff; they are afraid of it; they don’t see any point to it … Several other studies suggest that mathematics has the dubious honor of being the least popular subject in the curriculum.” [7] 

Pandemic effects on math achievement 

Think back to what school looked like between March 2020 – May 2021. The education landscape was truly in a period of turmoil and adjustment then, as many of us remember – we saw the widespread introduction of fully remote and asynchronous classrooms, then hybrid learning models, quarantining entire classrooms if a certain number of students called in sick. Elementary students, including kindergarteners, were expected to learn how to be students and people through tablet and laptop screens; parents were required to split time working and supervising/co-teaching their children using digital materials; and teachers were expected to deliver a full curriculum through virtual calls to often faceless students and learning to use online learning platforms. 

As the 21-22 school year came around, schools went back to fully in-person schedules and there was hope that we could return to the “normal” education experience. For many students, though, this would not be achievable as they had not had the opportunity to learn directly from their teacher, socialize face-to-face with their peers, or simply be in a classroom environment for a long time. Academic measures fell as a result, with 26% of eight graders showing math proficiency in 2022 (down from 33% in 2019) [8]. Major content gaps had formed over the previous year-and-half, and it would take a lot of work to fill those gaps. 

Introducing Colorado Math Corps 

Colorado Youth for a Change brought Math Corps, a 4th – 8th grade math tutoring program born in Minnesota, to Colorado in 2021 and started piloting a K-3 math tutoring program this school year. The program has two main goals: providing high quality individualized tutoring to students to build and improve foundational math skills and improve student confidence in math. Tutors work with students in small groups of 2-3 for up to 90 minutes each week, targeting skills students need support with to fully access their grade level math curriculum. Student proficiency in math, particularly whole number understanding and algebra readiness, by end of 8th grade is a big indicator of student success in high school and beyond; with the addition of the K-3 model we can reach students experiencing knowledge gaps earlier than ever.

So, between a historically unpopular subject and a dysregulated post-pandemic education environment, what do our math tutors see with their students? 

Image: Math Corps tutor Tyler Mitchell standing with co-tutor Julianne Daly under their service site’s logo. 

Meet Math Corps tutor, Tyler Mitchell. Tyler is serving his 2nd term of AmeriCorps with Colorado Youth for a Change, previously serving in our Reading Corps program. When I asked Tyler for one word to describe his students’ Math Corps journey this year, he used the word, “holistic.” 

“My students not only get the math part of the journey but also get the relationship building benefits of being in the program and they get the ability to experience a very “human” element to learning. This makes their experience genuine and enriching.” 

To drive this point home, he shared the story of an 8th grade student of his, Braiden. 

“Braiden started off as disinterested and unconfident. It wasn’t that he didn’t care, but he needed someone to connect with him. Through small group math tutoring, Braiden began to excel in just weeks. Through cultivating relationships and allowing for room to speak, [it] gave our space more of a hangout session feel and less of a math space feel.  We had discussions about the material and challenged each other’s answers to questions. Our space allowed for vulnerability and where we could work together on strengthening each other’s weaknesses.”  

Within 2 months, Braiden shifted from being the quiet one in the group to taking the lead. Within the first half of the school year, his benchmark results more than doubled, and his grades in his math class went up 4 number grades (IB scale). 

For Tyler, though, something else really stuck out to him about Braiden’s experience. 

“What really makes this story special is that even though he has met the qualifications for exiting our Math tutoring, he wants to remain in the group to help the other two students in their success. He has built outside of school relationships with the other two as well!” 

Braiden’s experience is not unique. When we ask tutors to reflect on their time with students, some strong commonalities arise. Students in Math Corps leave with pride and confidence in their abilities, and the relationships they build with tutors leave an impact as they continue past their tutoring sessions. Students self-report similar feelings, as shown in the graphs below taken from a study performed on Math Corps in Minnesota and Georgia in 2023. [5] 

Image: Bar graph depicting the percentage of Math Corps students reporting high levels of: Student-tutor relationship quality (left); Sense of belonging in Math Corps (right). 

Image: Bar graphs depicting percentages of students rating their math confidence on a scale from 1-5 at the middle of the year (left) and at the end of the year (right). 

Expanding Math Corps to K-3 

With the introduction of K-3 Math Corps this fall, we’re now seeing these kinds of results even earlier in a student’s education journey. Nichole Hadley is a member of our K-3 pilot program and recently shared a reflection of success with a 2nd grade student, Izzy. 

“Izzy began tutoring with extreme anxiety. She had meltdowns and talked negatively about herself, saying she couldn’t do the work. This week Izzy took her Unit 2 Mastery and passed with 100%. She also took her winter benchmark and went from a 40% in the fall to a 70%. Her meltdowns have stopped, she is coming to tutoring excited, and she’s speaking about herself more positively.” 

Many of our math tutors come into this program because they also struggled as a student but did (or didn’t) have someone there who paid attention to them and supported them through their struggles. They want to become that kind of support for students now. Nichole further reflected on her relationship with Izzy, saying:  

“I can relate to Izzy a lot about anxiety and struggling with math at a young age. It is great to see such a positive change in her. She is building confidence in math and that will follow her throughout all aspects of her life and benefit her in so many ways.” 

Image: A “Math Talk” poster hanging in Nichole’s tutoring space, prompting students to think and talk about the math they are doing. 

Colorado 8th graders are still struggling to meet pre-pandemic results, but if we look at where they are recovering from, we see some steady growth and recovery. When these students were 6th graders in 2022, their CMAS results showed 26.3% of students met or exceeded expectations in math (down from 29.5% for 2019 6th graders [2]). In 2024, 32.5% of that cohort as 8th graders met or exceeded expectations (down from 36.9% in 2019). 

Our students are capable and resilient enough to close these gaps, and sometimes they just need to know they have someone in their corner who will provide both individualized support and belief in them to find success. 

Works Cited 

Brundin, J. (2024, August 20). The 2024 Colorado standardized test scores are in. here are 5 key takeaways. Colorado Public Radio. https://www.cpr.org/2024/08/20/colorado-standardized-test-scores-2024-takeaways/ 

CDE. (2022). 2022 CMAS ELA and Math State Summary Achievement Results. Colorado Department of Education. https://www.cde.state.co.us/assessment/2022_cmas_ela_math_statesummaryachievementresults 

Colorado Department of Higher Education. (2022, April). Statewide Transfer Articulation Agreement in Elementary Teacher Education. Denver.  

MathTeacherEDU.org. (2025). Certification Requirements to Become a Math Teacher in Colorado. https://www.mathteacheredu.org/colorado/ 

Robles, S., O’Connell, K., Gothro, A., & Place, K. (2023). (rep.). Math Corps’ Tutoring Program: Math Knowledge Impacts and Participant Math Perceptions. Mathematica. https://www.mathematica.org/publications/math-knowledge-impacts-and-math-perceptions-among-participants-in-math-corps-tutoring-program 

ServeMN. (n.d.). K-3 math support. National Science and Service Collaborative of ServeMinnesota. https://nssc.serveminnesota.org/program-innovation/k-3-math-support  

Time. (1956, June 18). Education: Least popular subject. https://time.com/archive/6799710/education-least-popular-subject/  

The Annie E. Casey Foundation. (2024, June 10) Pandemic Learning Loss and COVID-19: Education Impacts. https://www.aecf.org/blog/pandemic-learning-loss-impacting-young-peoples-futures